1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to methods of registering and managing warranty information for consumer products, and for providing warranty service to consumers.
2. Description of Prior Art
It is common for an identification card or reply post card to be included in products to request data to help register and link the product's serial number with warranty and ownership data. Such ownership data includes the owners name, address, date of purchase or installation of the product, name of dealer or store, and may also include installer's name, age, income range, reason for purchase, and other demographic information. The data is usually supplied on a postcard (“warranty card”) or at a warranty registration web site. Most purchasers of such products do not complete and mail in these warranty cards or go online to bother to register the warranty, which is very undesirable for the manufacturers for a number of reasons. The manufacturer desires to know the date the product went into service so as to be able to calculate the expiration date of the warranty and avoid disputes about warranty claims on expired warranties.
Manufacturers of consumer products have attempted to improve the rate at which consumers register the warranties on products for several reasons. These reasons include the desire to track the demographics of the purchasers, to be able to notify consumers of improvements or recalls, and to track the date the product was put in service or purchased in order to determine when the warranty has expired and to avoid having to provide warranty service after the termination of the warranty. For example, see LoVasco, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,208,853, of Mar. 27, 2001 which relates to an automated cell phone product warranty registration system.
Among the methods which manufacturers have tried are contests which a consumer can enter by returning the warranty form and thereby possibly winning a prize. Another method has been to set up online registration web pages which is more convenient for some purchasers than returning a warranty card. However, in spite of expensive campaigns and other efforts of manufacturers of consumer products, it is well known that less than 10% of product warranty cards are returned to the manufacturers and only a small percentage of purchasers bother to go online to register their warranties. A solution to this problem has been long sought.
When a product which is under warranty has a defect or problem which requires returning it to a service location for repair, an owner must first verify with the manufacturer that the product is still under warranty, then the owner must determine the service location, and then the owner must package the product and send it to the service location. These steps are time consuming and for some owners, very difficult to accomplish. This process is also a burden on the manufacturer because the consumer will typically have to call a toll-free manufacturer number to find out the service location and whether the warranty is still in force, as well as details as to how to return the defective product for service.
In the aforementioned Ser. No. 09/562,673, I disclosed a return system and method which employs RFID transponders which are affixed to articles and are used to identify the articles for efficient identification of the owner in the event that a lost article is found. My return system links owner information to a database which can be accessed by a courier service such as Federal Express, UPS, U.S. Postal Service, and the like which has an RFID reader connected to the a client-server computer system such as the Internet.